Endless Knight (The Arcana Chronicles) (2 page)

But if he feared me—or us—then why hadn’t he left?

I was about to ask him when a wave of dizziness and chills hit me, regeneration sapping the last of my strength. The drops of rain were sparse but enough to dampen my hair and uncovered skin. As I limped to go find my jacket, I wondered if I would have time to harvest the life out of the oaks.

I could sink my claws into their bark and suck them dry, like mainlining energy. But it took time. One bad thing about using trees as weapons? After the Flash, I had to load them with my own life force, my blood.

Another bad thing? You couldn’t take them with you.

The others followed me inside, skirting the puddle of remains.
Not really “inside,”
I thought, gazing at the surreal scene.

Though the house was split in two, its exterior walls and roof collapsed, parts of the parlor were untouched. Doilies clung to tables. The fire lingered in the standing hearth.

This house was like me. We’d started out the day one way, and now we were both damaged beyond repair.
But a part of me remains the same. I hope.

Jackson’s gaze flickered over the dribbled burn marks on the floor. Acid had eaten away areas in the same scatter-patter array that marked my blistered legs. The wood was pocked around two perfect footprints, like twin islands.

When he looked at my healing skin, I knew he was putting together what had happened to me here. Surely he’d understand why I’d had to do what I did.

My eyes fell on Arthur’s recorder, still sitting atop an end table, now dotted with raindrops. A tape of my life’s story lay within. It’d clicked off just before he’d threatened to carve up my face with a scalpel. . . .

Matthew crossed to me, grinning down at me from his towering height, big brown eyes so trusting. “I missed Evie. The Empress is my friend.”

The flare of aggression I’d felt while in full Empress mode had faded
almost to nothing. Had I really believed that I might harm the others? I was ashamed of my thoughts.

Of course I’d never hurt Matthew. Which meant I’d never play this game.

He raised his ruddy face to the sky, catching drizzle. We’d gone eight months without rain; Matthew had predicted all bad things would come with it.

One threat at a time.
“We need to find shelter, sweetheart. Preferably one with a standing roof and no body parts scattered around.” Wincing at the pain in my legs, I asked, “Do I have enough time to drain energy from the oaks?”

Just as Matthew answered, “No,” Finn yelled, “Bagmen!”

2

The five of us ran to the porch. From the shadows, dozens of Baggers skulked toward the front yard. Their leathery, Flash-burned skin excreted reeking slime.

“How’d they get here so quick?” Finn cried. “They sounded miles off.”

“The fog’s playing tricks on us.”
The fog lies, Evie—
my grandmother’s words from long ago
.

The closest Bagmen were three tall males, wearing matching black Adidas suits. A zombie track team? Behind them, a bony female in a bra and Spanx lurched forward, one spongy pink curler bobbing in her stringy hair.

Scores more shuffled down the street. A doctor in her tattered scrubs. An old guy in plaid pajamas. A cop with his gun belt dangling from his gaunt waist.

There was no thought in their pale, runny eyes. Since their creation in the Flash, Bagmen had obeyed only their thirst.

Selena aimed her bow, backing closer to me. “Won’t the rain tide them over now?”

They surged forward. “Guess not! Evie, attack with your trees!” She turned to me, scowling at whatever she saw. “Your glyphs got way dimmer. Damn it, try anyway.”

Dim? I’d learned that meant the reserve of my powers was depleted, my Empress fuel gauge on empty. Still, I waved my arm, commanding the two colossal oaks to sweep their limbs across the yard. They groaned in protest, slow to obey—like overworked muscles. “Come on, come on!”

They managed to hit a line of Bagmen, bowling pins sent airborne.

“Holy shit!” Finn yelled. “I knew you could make ’em dance, but to
see
it!”

“Mère de Dieu,”
I heard Jackson rasp. Mother of God. First time he’d spoken.

Before I could strike again, more Baggers had flooded into the yard. I’d never seen so many, not even at Matthew’s place when we rescued him.

Though I struggled to control the trees, they were as weak and clumsy as I was. They swayed gently, nothing like the angry hydras they’d resembled before.

The Baggers attacked the trees like jackals seizing injured game, chewing at the limbs; I could feel every bite. Finally, my soldiers just . . . gave out. When they went limp, I tottered, Matthew catching me against him.

Selena cursed me. “Way to use up all your juice, idiot.”

I gasped out, “You’re saying that with one arrow left in your quiver?”

“Ladies,” Finn cried, “time to RUN!”

He and Selena sprinted past me toward the back of the house. As Jackson followed, he snatched his crossbow off his back and fired three shots. The trio of track teamers dropped, arrows jutting from their skulls, but Jackson held off firing his remaining ammo.

When he reached me, he barely slowed. After all the time I’d spent with him, I half-expected him to grab my arm and yell, “Move your ass,
bébé 
!” With a dark glance, he might have hesitated a split second, indicating that I should run in front of him.

Grabbing Matthew’s hand, I did, limping as fast as I could to the back.

Over his shoulder, Finn said, “They’re out this way too!”

Selena dropped into position on the back porch, her moonbeam hair streaming, bow aimed. But she’d never use that last arrow. “Evie, you got anything else in your bag of tricks?”

My other powers sucked against zombies. Poison only worked on living things. A thorn tornado would flay their skin, but couldn’t kill them. Maybe it could slow the Bagmen down. Though my thorn glyph was dark, I raised my hands to call on the barbs once more. I sensed them vibrating on the pavement . . . bees struggling back to life . . . then nothing.

“T-tapped out.” I told Finn, “Create an illusion, make it look like we’re running the other way.”

“I’m almost tapped out too! I disguised our jeep for forty-eight hours. A
moving
jeep, without letting the Cajun driver in on the secret. But I’ll try.” He began to whisper his mysterious Magician language, the air around him heating.

Soon we were rendered invisible, while five illusions of us appeared to run down the front porch steps and beyond. The closest Bagmen followed them. For now.

Unfortunately, Finn couldn’t disguise our scent.

Jackson did a double-take at the illusions. “More Baggers are coming! The house’ll be surrounded in seconds.”

My gaze was drawn to the right, toward the basement steps.

Jackson followed my gaze and started for them. Selena hurried after him, motioning for me to stay close. I followed them, Matthew and Finn right behind me. But at the threshold, I resisted returning to that lab.

Finn reached past Matthew to give me a little shove. “Come on, Eves!”

I swung around on him. “The last boy who pushed me down these steps became a
smear
.”

Finn held his hands up, eyes wide. “No problem, chica. ’S’cool.” He created another illusion, this one of a lantern to light the way. “Everything’s better with a little light, yeah?”

Farther down, Jackson scowled at the magic. So tonight was the first
time he’d witnessed it? We’d agreed to keep our powers secret from non-Arcana.

Secret? Guess I blew this bitch wide open.

He and Matthew both had to duck under the doorframe. After we all filed inside, Jackson eased the basement door closed, then slid a metal table in front of it.

We backed away, deeper into the lab, closer to the blood-spattered plastic drapes separating the dungeon. The others peered around, their gazes flickering over the Bunsen burners atop a long steel counter, the shelves of jarred body parts. Left over from my battle with the Alchemist, broken glass and spilled serums covered the packed earth floor.

Finn said, “It’s official—this is the creepiest place I’ve ever been. Some mad scientist just called, wants his lab back.”

You haven’t seen the worst.

Once the rancid smell from the dungeon hit them, Finn covered his mouth. “What the hell’s back there?”

“A corpse,” I answered tonelessly. “It’s . . . decomposing.” My shivers started anew.

When Matthew put his arm around my shoulders, I pressed my face against his damp shirt.

As if they couldn’t help themselves, one by one, Jackson, Selena, and Finn slipped past those spattered curtains.

Matthew led me to the back wall, using his battered tennis shoes to shuffle glass from a spot on the floor.

When we sat on the chilly ground, I said, “You already know what’s back there, don’t you?”

“A butcher’s block. Drain fields. Bone saws and cleavers. Rusted shackles dangling from the wall.” He shrugged. “I see far.” He’d shown me visions of the past, present, and future—of Arcana and even non-Arcana.

But he’d once told me the future flowed like waves—or eddies—and that it was difficult to read. “Did you know I was going to defeat the Alchemist?”

He shook his head. He seemed less confused than usual. “I see far, not all.” He grasped my right hand, tapping the new marking. “I bet on you to take his icon.”

I supposed those symbols were a way to keep score in this sick game.

I thought I heard a gasp from the dungeon, and tried to imagine that space through their eyes. Would seeing the chained-up corpse make them understand what I’d faced?

If I’d gotten to Arthur’s earlier, maybe I could’ve saved that girl. I tipped my head back and stared at the low ceiling. How many others were out there in chains, waiting to be freed. . . ?

3

Finn stumbled out of the dungeon first, hand over his mouth. “About to Technicolor yawn.” He retched but kept it down.

Selena’s expression was blank when she exited. Without a word, she took a seat atop one of the counters.

When Jackson emerged, he looked like he was struggling to control his rage. For a boy who so often resorted to his fists, he despised violence against women.

He crossed to the table blocking the door, then sank down on the ground to sit against one of the table legs. To reinforce his blockade? Or because it was the spot in the room farthest away from me?

He seemed to be thrumming with frustrated energy, like a tiger prowling a cage. And like a trapped animal, Jackson now had nowhere to go.

I tried to put myself in his shoes. What would I do if I thought he was one way and he turned out to be something supernaturally different? I knew well what I looked like in the throes of my powers—I’d been horrified to see a past Empress in my nightmares.

If I’d been revolted, how could he not be?

Skittering sounded from above us, then a
boom!
as if furniture had been upended. “They’re back,” I whispered. Bagmen on our trail.

We all gazed up at the ceiling, Jackson and Selena raising their bows.
How many were there? Would the decomposing body down here camouflage our scent?

After several heartbeats passed, they roved on. Selena and Jackson gradually lowered their weapons.

With a sigh of relief, Finn took a seat right beside Selena, clearly still infatuated; she glared.

“I’m guessing we’ll be here awhile,” he began, “and I need some questions answered. Like why you two were acting like you wanted to kill each other. Some of the last hot chicks on earth, I might add.”

“Tell them, Selena,” I bit out. I was still regenerating, which meant pain was radiating throughout my body. “Tell them everything you know about the game—everything you’ve hidden from us all along.”

“Oh, you’re one to talk!” Selena gripped the bow in her lap as if she was longing to fire on me.

“What do you mean by
game
?” Finn asked. “Strip poker’s a game. Quarters is a game. Games are fun.”

As though the words were dragged from her, Selena said, “Every few centuries, a contest begins, pitting twenty-two kids against each other in a life-or-death conflict. We’re called Arcana, and we have special powers, the same in each game.”

Finn held up his hand. “Whoa, you said before that you didn’t know why we had powers.”

“I lied,” she said without an ounce of shame. “The last one standing gets to live until the next contest, as an immortal. Our histories were recorded—on Tarot cards.”

I glanced over at Jackson to see how he was taking all these revelations. His eyes were narrowed, the wheels turning.
Yes, Cajun, we all hid secrets from you, me most of all. Yes, we’re not totally, well, human. And,
oui
,
you’re stuck in a cellar with the freaks.

Selena continued, “Some families keep logs of the players and battles, detailed chronicles. My family did. Evie’s as well. Her grandmother’s a wisewoman of the Tarot, a Tarasova. Yet for some
reason, Evie says she’s forgotten everything about the game.”

“I forgot because I was young!” I snapped, though this was far from the whole truth. No need to confide to her that I’d been “deprogrammed” at CLC, an Atlanta loony bin. “I was eight the last time I saw her.”

Selena pointed to my hand. “Now Evie’s entered the game for real. She made a kill.”

Finn asked me, “So the guy out in the yard—the mad scientist—was an Arcana? How did you find him?”

“I heard his call, and I followed it.”

Selena explained to Jackson, “All Arcana have a catchphrase, like a signature about their character. We can hear each other’s. It’s how we communicate, I guess. How we can tell who’s getting closer.”

To find the Alchemist, I’d learned how to block out some calls and home in on others, like dialing in a station on an antique radio. Even when I wasn’t tuned in to the Arcana Channel, the broadcast would still play for others. “That’s right, Selena,” I said. “And yet you told us that you’d never heard voices, called us crazy.” Finn gave me a
damn straight!
look.